Familiar foes – The Caps are facing a familiar opponent when they host the New York Rangers tonight in Verizon Center . Including last year’s playoffs and this year’s preseason schedule, tonight’s game will mark the 10th time the Caps have played the Rangers in their last 24 games. One matchup to keep an eye on tonight is Caps sniper Alex Ovechkin against New York ’s goaltending stalwart Henrik Lundqvist. Ovechkin has seven career regular-season goals against Lundqvist. He tallied one goal during his 2005-06 rookie season and has potted two goals against King Henrik in each of the past three seasons. The seven combined goals tie for the second-most amount Ovechkin has scored against a goalie in his career who has never played in the Southeast Division. Lundqvist is tied with Boston ’s Tim Thomas for second, but both trail Buffalo ’s Ryan Miller who has yielded nine Ovechkin goals.

NOTE OF THE NIGHT

Three for three –Alex Ovechkin, who leads the NHL with nine points (5g-4a), is just the third player in history and the first in 27 years to record three points in each of the first three games of the season. It is the first time Ovechkin has had three straight three-point games in his career. Ovechkin joins Guy Lafleur (1975-76) and Peter Stastny (1982-83), neither of whom had a three-point game in the fourth game. With a point tonight, Ovechkin would become the first player since Martin Havlat in 2006-07 to record 10 points in his team's first four games of the season.

Ovechkin's three-game goal streak is his best to start a season in his five-year career. He has five goals more than a month earlier than last year, when he scored his fifth on Nov. 14 (his 14th game, the team's 16th). Ovechkin has 61 goals in his last 82 regular-season games and 40 in his last 50 games (counting playoffs).

FIVE MORE NOTES NO MEDIA PERSON SHOULD BE WITHOUT

Leading the way – After Tuesday night's games, Washington had the top four scorers in the NHL. Alex Ovechkin (9 points), Nicklas Backstrom (8), Alexander Semin (7) and Brooks Laich (6) are each averaging at least two points per game.

Gimme 5 – Washington 's 15 goals through three games are two more than any other team and two shy of the most goals in three games in franchise history (17, 1988-89). Two Capitals teams have averaged five goals per game through four games (1997-98 and '87-88, 20 goals each).

Multiplication tables –Capitals players have combined for five multiple-goal games in the first three games of the season (Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin, 2 each, and Brooks Laich 1). Washington is 23-0-2 the last 25 times Ovechkin has had a multiple-goal game, dating to a regulation loss on Nov. 30, 2007 ( Bruce Boudreau 's fifth game behind the bench).

Back it up –Nicklas Backstrom leads the NHL with eight assists, posting two three-assist games and a two-assist game through the first week of the season. Backstrom has at least one assist in each of his last seven regular-season games, with 14 assists in that time. He has 73 assists in his last 82 games.

Powerful stuff – Washington already has four power-play goals this season (4-for-12, 33.3%), but none by its top three power-play goal scorers last season (Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green and Nicklas Backstrom).

“If you grow up in metro Washington, you grow up a diehard Redskins fan. But if you hate your parents, you grow up a Cowboys fan.”-Jim Lachey